Apple Watch Series 12
5.0/ 5 Excellent
Buy now at Amazon
Pros & Cons
- New Health Sensing System boosts heart rate-sensing accuracy.
- No price increase from generation to generation.
- A new Health app experience boosts overall app engagement.
- Audio Intelligence features come with privacy concerns.
For the past few years, the Apple Watch seemed to have an identity crisis. It was a communication companion, a timekeeper, and an exercise tracker, and it did some functions better than others. Besides being a smartwatch, it lacked a definitive thing compared to its competitors.
Also: I tested the Apple Watch Ultra 4, and these 4 upgrades matter most
Oura’s smart ring did sleep tracking well. Whoop was built for athletes and hardcore longevity-maxxers. Google brought a more affordable fitness band to market and paired it with an effective AI health coach. Continuous glucose monitors like Abbott’s Lingo and Dexcom’s Stelo helped non-diabetics understand their glucose trends. And, well, Apple had a smartwatch.
The company spent the last few years stealthily assessing its competition as the wearable health market ballooned into a $145 million business. The result? A twelfth-generation device that makes Apple’s overall health vision and mission clear: it might’ve taken over ten years, but the Apple Watch is just getting started as an indispensable health tracker and AI wearable.
The Apple Watch Series 12 makes Apple’s overall health vision and mission clear: the Apple Watch has always been a future-forward device; it just took a few years to put all the puzzle pieces together.
I’ve tested the watch for over a week now, sleeping with it each night, receiving a Readiness score each morning, running my fastest 5K with the device, and even trying out its revamped Health app. What I have used excites me. What I haven’t used yet (the unreleased Audio Intelligence features) intrigues me.
What’s new
The biggest update to the Series 12 and Ultra 4 this year is Apple’s Health Sensing system. Upgraded sensors on the back produce Apple’s most accurate heart rate tracking to date, and Apple claims the Health Sensing System is the most accurate heart rate tracker ever across any wearable.
The watch now monitors heart rate every five seconds and heart rate variability every five minutes, making it 60 and 24 times more frequent than previous generations. This increased frequency allows all sorts of new metrics to be calculated on the Series 12, including a Recovery HRV Average, Daytime Vitals (on top of the Vitals app that monitors breathing rate, wrist temperature, resting heart rate, and HRV overnight), and a Health Age (how fast or slowly your biometric data is aging you compared to your physiological age).
Also: I put Apple’s heart rate accuracy claims to the test
It might seem like small potatoes that these new metrics just came out of the Apple Watch if you’ve followed other product launches. But all these changes at once on the Apple Watch are quite significant for a company that’s known for playing it as safe.
Last year, only two health upgrades landed on the Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 — Sleep Scores and Possible Hypertension Detection. This year, there’s a redesigned Health app, a Longevity tab with several assessments that contribute to your Health Age, a Readiness app, Daytime Vitals, and a full suite of redesigned hardware in the form of stronger sensors and increased electrodes and photodiodes to make the Apple Watch even quicker at gathering all this data. Talk about an upgrade.
That stronger sensor provides an even higher level of accuracy for the smartwatch when compared to gold standard devices, Apple says. This includes chest strap heart rate monitors, like the Polar H10, which I tested the Series 12 against. I also tested the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Pixel Watch 5 on a run with the Polar H10 chest strap, and found that the Series 12 had a .998 correlation to the Polar H10 chest strap, while the Pixel Watch had a .943 correlation.
The Readiness app is one of those Apple Watch features that I had expected a few years ago, but am happy to use now. I love the way Apple creates its Readiness and Sleep Scores compared to its rivals, which is a little more generous.
Also: Is Apple Watch 12 worth the upgrade? My advice as a Series 10 and 11 owner
It can feel impossible to get a 95 sleep score on an Oura Ring, Pixel Watch or Fitbit, or Whoop. Their scoring depends on many different factors, like the time in which your resting heart rate drops to its lowest, your previous day’s activity, and several other uncontrollable factors. Those trackers are tough graders, and research shows that when people learn they slept poorly, they feel even worse throughout the day and hyperfixate on their sleep the following night.
I’d like to see these products offer insights that not only helps you sleep better, but illustrates data in a way that doesn’t overwhelm or feed into orthosomnia. Apple addresses this through its clear-cut Readiness and Sleep score approach that identifies what contributes to good sleep, like consistent timing, duration, heart rate data, and breathing disturbances, and it sticks with these factors and scoring night after night.
WatchOS 27 updates & revamped Health app in beta
One of my favorite WatchOS 27 updates that arrived on this new generation is perhaps the simplest. When you click the digital crown on your watch, the smartwatch no longer opens to the 40-something apps available on your Apple Watch’s home screen. Instead, six of your most-used appear first, alongside a home screen app that, when tapped, unravels all the other Apple Watch apps. It’s a helpful and a small touch that I love.
Apple’s Health app revamp is less a small touch and more a monstrosity of an overhaul — and a welcome one at that. I’ve been using the new Health app through the iOS 27 developer beta, and I noticed within the first few days of updates that my app engagement is through the roof.
The Health app feels more interactive, with a few new tabs that separate daily data points from longitudinal trends. I got to see my Apple Health Age, which is 8.1 years younger than my biological age. Apple calculates this through my cardio fitness trends, daily exercise minutes, overnight heart rate variability, resting heart rate, steps, and sleep score. In this tab, you can also add glucose data and LDL cholesterol data to factor that into your overall age.
I don’t know how scientifically accurate Health Age really is, mostly because I’ve tested similar features across different wearables, and each of them spits out a different score. What I do know is that the heightened focus on developing longevity biomarkers can boost the engagement and long-term use of a product like Apple Watch. It’s one more score someone can work towards acing, and a feature Apple can gamify for longer engagement in the Health app.
Audio Intelligence
At its annual iPhone event, Apple unveiled Audio Intelligence in tandem with the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4. Four new features leverage Apple’s Secure Exclave, its privacy-forward island on the S11 chip that buffers audio data with security and encryption built into the processor.
These new features include Audio Rewind, Siri Recap, a new and faster Shazam, and Sound Recognition. The latter two are available now on the smartwatch and work smoothly. Shazam can quickly identify songs playing, delivering the song identification through the Smart Stack. I’ve used this several times and have had no issues getting it to work. Sound Recognition helps those hard of hearing identify important sounds, like a siren or a baby crying, by displaying that information on the Apple Watch.
Also: Apple’s Audio Intelligence is priming us for its real AI wearables future
Audio Rewind and Siri Recap arrive later this year, and they’re a bit more contentious. I view these two features as the first few steps on Apple’s stealthy roadmap into a more AI-forward wearable. Both features listen to your conversation and either summarize meetings or provide a transcript of the past 15 seconds of dialogue, in case someone zones out or misses a key point during a lecture, a work meeting, or an outing with friends. It’s a feature fit for an already distracted customer base, though not without obvious privacy concerns.
Apple is soft-launching a few Audio Intelligence features on the Apple Watch to test the AI waters. Next year it may debut AirPods with cameras or smart glasses, but it needs to get its users accustomed to some core principles: that it’s always on, that it’s listening continuously, and that it solves a quick problem. Apple’s AI approach is more privacy-centric than its competitors, which is why I have more faith in these new features than I would compared to its competitors.
Who the Apple Watch Series 12 is for
So, who would these upgrades serve most? I think about my parents, who use older Apple Watches to track their Peloton rides, neighborhood walks, and laps in the pool. Thanks to the aforementioned Hypertension detection launched in the Series 11 and all the new longevity and heart rate features available in the Series 12, I can see users aged 40+ getting the most out of Apple’s full suite of health advancements.
That said, I can also see someone in their 20s who is looking for an alternative to Oura or Whoop wearing this watch as they train for the New York City Marathon or obsess over their steps and heart rate data, since it’s currently one of the most accurate wearables on the market.
Also: My Fitbit Air test revealed the flaws of calorie counting with a health tracker – here’s why
It’s also a good choice for the fitness- and longevity-obsessed crowd that wants an accurate health tracker. Compared with some rivals, it’s cheaper than an Oura Ring 5 or a Whoop, both of which tack on annual subscriptions for full data access. The Oura Ring 5 starts at $399, and the annual subscription adds $70 each year to your device. Whoop’s subscription tiers have customers paying anywhere from $200 to $360 annually.
Final thoughts
I’m quite pleased wearing the Apple Watch Series 12 for all of its new features and revamped hardware that make it accurate and engaging. My few qualms with it have less to do with the Apple Watch itself and more to do with wearing a mini phone screen around your wrist 24/7. If you are easily discomforted by a hefty device around your wrist, I’d suggest a smart ring instead. But if you want the best Apple Watch available, I’d suggest buying the Series 12. A dark bronze finish (alongside some Ceramic finishes that cost $500 extra) make the Apple Watch even more stylish this year.
Why the Apple Watch Series 12 earns our Editors’ Choice award
The Apple Watch Series 12 is as good as a highly accurate smartwatch can get. Apple adds stronger sensors to the back of the watch to boost heart rate sensing accuracy, and this functionality touches almost all of the Apple Watch’s newest health features. The new longevity features rival Oura, Whoop, and other competitors, while keeping the price of the watch lower and subscription-free (for now).
